Mondelez chewing gum leaves bitter taste in Southern Africa
Friday, August 29, 2014
But in 2010 the UK food giant Cadbury was eaten by an even bigger fish, the American firm, Kraft Foods. Kraft had in turn been acquired by the US tobacco giant Philip Morris in 1988. With this rather unfortunate direct ownership of Kraft, a food producer by a very big tobacco giant it was time for basic rebranding to make sure that the company’s chocolate consumers were as a far away as possible from the foul smell of Philip Morris cigarettes and its many tobacco litigation cases in the USA. Following the merger with Cadbury, Kraft split off its global snacking business and rebranded and renamed it in 2012 as ‘Mondelez’- meaning ‘delicious world’ in French.
There was something very British, almost colonial about the structure of Cadbury in Southern Africa, having plants producing specialized products in four of the five SACU countries. Specialty chocolates were made in Namibia, chewing gum in Botswana, Bubble gum and candy in Swaziland and in South Africa chocolate products (with most of the 900 jobs) in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
The recent disclosure by the IEC that 2,513 registrations have been turned down due to various irregularities should prompt all Batswana to meticulously review the voters' rolls and address concerns about rejected registrations.The disparities flagged by the IEC are troubling and emphasise the significance of rigorous voter registration processes.Out of the rejected registrations, 29 individuals were disqualified due to non-existent Omang...